--- title: "What makes a Great Software Company | 1:1 mentoring" description: "The topmost indicators that define great software companies: how they ship, hire, decide, and learn. A checklist to grade your own company against." url: "https://www.marian.coach/blog/what-makes-a-great-software-company/" lang: "en" image: "https://www.marian.coach/images/blog-covers/what-makes-a-great-software-company.webp" --- ![What makes a Great Software Company](https://www.marian.coach/images/blog-covers/what-makes-a-great-software-company.webp) > My humble effort to put the topmost indicators of what defines great software companies in the first place. ![A yellow rubber duck with a red beak standing on a plain white background](https://www.marian.coach/images/blog-archive/2023/08/image-1-jpeg.webp) ## Do I trust the Product? It is the Product which matters, not the technology. Are you fully on board with the Product\`s vision? Alternatively, I like to judge the Product\`s impact via its simplicity: **Is the Product simple enough you can explain the point in 15 seconds?** That signals the Product can make it to the top and take you there as well. Simplicity sells ideas. Does the Product aim to cut its piece out of the market without a WOW! feature or a differentiator, compared to other competitors? Is the company focused on making the Product grow or does the company live out of inertia, doing mostly support and sustaining at the end of the Product\`s life? **Does your team have a designated Product manager enthusiastic about the Product?** If you trust the direction of the Product and its impact, you are on the right spot. On the other hand, if you happen to work on the Product features with a blurry outcome and no feedback, abort the ship. ## Is the management fair and transparent? ![Stained glass window with stylised figures reading books, in red, blue, green and yellow panels](https://www.marian.coach/images/blog-archive/2023/08/image-2-jpeg.webp) In a work environment, transparency is everything. Having visibility into the direction and decisions, there is no space for significant misunderstandings or uncertainties, waste, or toxic culture. The company has focus on the top goals and shares its current status. **The chef-d’oeuvre is to find the company which applies its Values in the real world** as opposed to being just posted on walls in capital letters. One can ask about situations how the Values have helped the company to make the right decisions in practice. The reason why it\`s worth looking at the company Values and Principles is, when used properly, it will actually help you to win arguments and get the buy-in to your ideas. Nobody fights against company Values. To find out what is the current level of transparency in the company, **observe how the top management behaves** **in terms of communication and openness**. The reason being, I firmly believe people in a company copy the behavioral patterns of their top managers. Do you have a regular opportunity to raise a valid question way up or across the company? Do people in the company **naturally rise kudos to others or shame themselves** via an open channel? Is the manager consistent in what he says, and explains transparently the reason why some of his opinions or directions might have changed? One example above all, does everyone have **access to the financial overview** to see how healthy the company is? Check the Cashflow, MRR, CAC, LTV, ie. ## Ideas gathering ![Hand-drawn Innovation Days loop: idea, backlog, prioritization, 2 days per person a month, demo and pizza](https://www.marian.coach/images/blog-archive/2023/08/image-3.png) Focus on the roadmap is heavily important. A crucial complement to it is the ideas gathering across the company in a bottom-up way. ![Marian Kamenistak seated in front of monstera plants in a sunlit space.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/portrait-plants.Dhdv2ZXq_ufnal.webp) The best idea pipelines I have seen run calmly in the background, not as a once-a-year fire drill. It is not enough to ask employees what product ideas or features they have in mind just once to twice a year. Ideas generation is a continuous process. Therefore, a company should collect new ideas on a frequent basis in the form of a background process, where you explicitly provide space and time to it. Could be **[Innovation days](https://www.marian.coach/blog/innovation-days-transforming-ideas-to-product/)**, allowing people to spend 2 days per month on their product innovations or prototypes, forming tiger teams. Usually, a third of ideas is part of learning and waste which is the natural part of the process. Another third is turned into prototypes and waiting for completion or for being a roadmap candidate. The last third makes it to the product. ## Learning ![Tunnel built from thousands of stacked books curving into darkness, a sculpture about endless learning](https://www.marian.coach/images/blog-archive/2023/08/image-4-jpeg.webp) For an engineering career in the long-term, [learning is key](https://www.marian.coach/blog/learn-or-die/). In fact, it is the top goal of every person that matters. **Whatever happens, your knowledge and experience are what makes you valuable.** Is the company providing any sort of [introductory and deep-dive courses](https://www.marian.coach/blog/11-steps-to-transform-your-learning-culture/), programmes or materials to get you on board with the Product? And secondarily, how does the company help you to extend your expertise? Look for architectural sessions, **[Communities of Practice](https://www.marian.coach/blog/community-of-practice-for-engineering-managers/)** in the backend, front-end, mobile, or any sort of regular knowledge-sharing sessions. Pluralsight access solely doesn\`t do the trick 🙂 The other deciding factor you can identify later on is if the company lives by the [**Psychological safety**](https://hbr.org/2017/08/high-performing-teams-need-psychological-safety-heres-how-to-create-it) principle, where you are free to express your opinions or make small mistakes to learn from, without being bullied. As to more serious failures, are open [**Post-mortems**](https://techbeacon.com/app-dev-testing/make-most-mistakes-best-practices-agile-retrospectives-postmortems) part of the company\`s culture, ensuring the very same errors don\`t get repeated? ![Marian Kamenistak in a 1:1 mentoring session.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-04.DW02JUAo_Z1QEtou.webp) Learning culture is the one factor mentees bring up most when they describe a company they trust. [On my path](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariankamenistak/), I was fortunate to work with leaders worth following. I learned a lot from others. When I couldn’t find such a leader, I learned another skill, which is **to move elsewhere**. ## Outcomes over Tickets ![Wall of handwritten wooden wish plaques hanging on dark red cords at a shrine](https://www.marian.coach/images/blog-archive/2023/08/image-3-jpeg.webp) As a developer, you most probably work in Scrum, Kanban, or a mixture of both. Most of these approaches are based on a ticketing system (Jira, YouTrack, Asana, Trello, ..). > The main differentiator to look for is whether the company considers the main goal of the developer to be **“closing the tickets” or to “create features”**. To find out, look for answers on: Is the development team involved early enough in the solutioning and design phase to find a better solution together or is the team simply told by the handed-over specification from a Product manager how the feature is supposed to work? Is the team success measured just by the number of tickets being closed or does the team have the freedom to change the Sprint content for the purpose to achieve the goal designated for the Sprint? **At regular demos, is the new feature reviewed by product managers, support, delivery, and sales teams as well?** ## Summary > It is your trust to the Product, the high level of transparency across the company, strong learning environment and focus on outcomes which makes a software company great. **In terms of technological awareness, look for the company public blogs, papers, patents, conference speakers or open-source contribution.** In the end, specific technologies and frameworks don\`t matter that much. What matters is if you are in the right place at the right time. Be part of something amazing and [see your Product gain the $2bn valuation](https://www.marian.coach/blog/vp-of-engineering-mews-a-look-back-on-my-1st-year/). **Such experience makes you the most valuable.** ![Handwritten Great software company checklist with five questions on trust, transparency and learning](https://www.marian.coach/images/blog-archive/2023/08/image-2.png) 1:1 mentoring ## Ready to move this from advice to action? 1:1 mentoring for engineering leaders. 300+ mentees since 2019. Pay-as-you-go or a 6-session pack. First intro is free. [Book a free 30-min intro →](https://www.marian.coach/mentoring/) ## Read next - [ ### VP of Engineering @ Mews - A look back on my 1st year Life is fun! Joining a new company in April 2020 couldn’t have been easier: The Prague HQ office got closed due to the virus whose name we shall not mentio… 30 June 2021 · By Marian Read → ](https://www.marian.coach/blog/vp-of-engineering-mews-a-look-back-on-my-1st-year/) - [ ### How to Build Trust with Engineering Teams In engineering management, my vision is to create a productive software delivery environment that developers are proud to work in, with a focus on tangible… 10 August 2020 · By Marian Read → ](https://www.marian.coach/blog/how-to-build-trust-with-engineering-teams/) - [ ### How I Grew a $200k Mentoring Business from Scratch I turned a 6-month mentoring test into 161+ mentees, 1000+ sessions, and a $200k/year mentoring business. 10 no-BS steps to start and scale. 30 September 2025 · By Marian Read → ](https://www.marian.coach/blog/mentoring-business-playbook/) ### New posts, straight to your inbox. Your emailSubscribe You're on it. Nothing hits your inbox today. First send goes out once the list is live, and you're already on it. [Connect on LinkedIn →](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariankamenistak/)[See the free tools →](https://www.marian.coach/ai-coaching-tools/) ## Structured data ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ProfessionalService","name":"Marian Kamenistak | Engineering Leadership Mentoring","url":"https://www.marian.coach/blog/what-makes-a-great-software-company/","image":"https://www.marian.coach/images/blog-covers/what-makes-a-great-software-company.webp","description":"The topmost indicators that define great software companies: how they ship, hire, decide, and learn. A checklist to grade your own company against.","serviceType":["Engineering leadership mentoring","Engineering manager coaching","CTO coaching","Fractional CTO","Leadership development for software engineers"],"hasOfferCatalog":{"@type":"OfferCatalog","name":"Engineering leadership mentoring and advisory","itemListElement":[{"@type":"Offer","itemOffered":{"@type":"Service","name":"1:1 engineering leadership mentoring","description":"One-to-one mentoring for engineering leaders from Staff Engineer to CTO. 60-minute sessions, weekly or bi-weekly.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/pricing/"}},{"@type":"Offer","itemOffered":{"@type":"Service","name":"Engineering manager coaching","description":"Coaching for first-time and experienced engineering managers: delegation, performance, hiring, team scaling.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/engineering-manager-mentor/"}},{"@type":"Offer","itemOffered":{"@type":"Service","name":"CTO and VP Engineering mentoring","description":"Mentoring for CTOs, VPs of Engineering and Heads of Engineering running 30-200 person organisations.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/cto-mentor/"}},{"@type":"Offer","itemOffered":{"@type":"Service","name":"Mentor in Residence","description":"A dedicated onsite mentor for your engineering organisation, booked by the quarter.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/mentor-in-residence/"}},{"@type":"Offer","itemOffered":{"@type":"Service","name":"Fractional CTO","description":"Part-time CTO engagements for companies without a full-time technology leader.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/fractional-cto/"}}]},"telephone":"+420 736 519 879","email":"marian@marian.coach","sameAs":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariankamenistak/","https://www.youtube.com/@engineeringleaders","https://github.com/marian-kamenistak","https://www.engineeringleaders.io/","https://twitter.com/marian_coaches","https://www.elc-conference.io/","https://www.marianslist.com/","https://www.mentoringhub.io/"],"address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Varšavská 715/36, Vinohrady","addressLocality":"Praha 2","postalCode":"12000","addressCountry":"CZ"},"geo":{"@type":"GeoCoordinates","latitude":50.0734418,"longitude":14.4385757},"openingHoursSpecification":[{"@type":"OpeningHoursSpecification","dayOfWeek":["Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday"],"opens":"09:00","closes":"17:00"}],"priceRange":"361–430 EUR","areaServed":[{"@type":"Place","name":"Europe"},{"@type":"Country","name":"Czechia"},{"@type":"Country","name":"Slovakia"},{"@type":"Country","name":"Poland"},{"@type":"Place","name":"North America"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Person","@id":"https://www.marian.coach/#person","name":"Marian Kamenistak","url":"https://www.marian.coach/","image":"https://www.marian.coach/images/blog-covers/what-makes-a-great-software-company.webp","jobTitle":["Engineering Leadership Mentor","Engineering Manager Coach","CTO Coach","Keynote Speaker"],"hasOccupation":{"@type":"Occupation","name":"Engineering Leadership Mentor"},"worksFor":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Engineering Leaders Community","url":"https://www.engineeringleaders.io/"},"alumniOf":[{"@type":"Organization","name":"Mews"},{"@type":"Organization","name":"Manta (acquired by IBM)"},{"@type":"Organization","name":"Databricks"}],"knowsLanguage":["English","Czech","Slovak"],"knowsAbout":["Engineering leadership","Engineering management","Scaling engineering teams","CTO mentoring","Engineering org design","VP of Engineering role","Engineering director role","CTPO role","Team lead development","Staff engineer career path","Fractional CTO engagements","AI-assisted engineering leadership","Conference keynotes on engineering leadership","Panel moderation","Podcast guest — engineering leadership"],"homeLocation":{"@type":"Place","name":"Prague, Czechia"},"sameAs":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariankamenistak/","https://www.youtube.com/@engineeringleaders","https://github.com/marian-kamenistak","https://www.engineeringleaders.io/","https://twitter.com/marian_coaches","https://www.elc-conference.io/","https://www.marianslist.com/","https://www.mentoringhub.io/","https://www.crunchbase.com/person/marian-kamenistak","https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q140488098","https://developers.mews.com/author/marian/","https://startupdisrupt.com/speakers/marian-kamenistak/","https://theorg.com/org/engineering-leaders-community/org-chart/marian-kamenistak"]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","url":"https://www.marian.coach/blog/what-makes-a-great-software-company/","name":"What makes a Great Software Company | 1:1 mentoring","inLanguage":"en","dateModified":"2023-08-15T00:00:00.000Z"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"What makes a Great Software Company","description":"The topmost indicators that define great software companies: how they ship, hire, decide, and learn. A checklist to grade your own company against.","inLanguage":"en","articleSection":"compensation","datePublished":"2019-08-22T00:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2023-08-15T00:00:00.000Z","author":{"@id":"https://www.marian.coach/#person"},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Marian Kamenistak","url":"https://www.marian.coach/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://www.marian.coach/favicon-192x192.webp","width":192,"height":192}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://www.marian.coach/images/blog-covers/what-makes-a-great-software-company.webp"},"mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://www.marian.coach/blog/what-makes-a-great-software-company/"},"keywords":"compensation, trust","wordCount":1250,"timeRequired":"PT6M","isAccessibleForFree":true} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://www.marian.coach/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Blog","item":"https://www.marian.coach/blog/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"What makes a Great Software Company","item":"https://www.marian.coach/blog/what-makes-a-great-software-company/"}]} ```